Like many Democrats, Former North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp celebrated the day President Joe Biden ended his presidential candidacy. As a self-proclaimed New Deal Democrat and proud Midwesterner, Senator Heitkamp reached out to rural Democrats to relay Harris’s campaign message. However, she expressed her distress in the Harris campaign, as gradual but clear mistakes were repeatedly made. To Senator Heitkamp, Election Day came as no surprise despite the polls predicting a close race. 

Senator Heidi Heitkamp sat down with me at the Institute of Politics exactly one week after the election to discuss the results of the election. Senator Heitkamp views the loss of the Democrats as an opportunity for the party to reflect on itself. 

Here are three takeaways from the conversation with Senator Heidi Heitkamp:

Senator Heitkamp says that Harris failed to differentiate herself from Biden on day one.

Senator Heitkamp says that since day one Harris should have taken the opportunity to separate her identity from the Biden administration. “She [Harris] thought that she could differentiate herself based on generational change and I don’t think that was going to work,” she said. 

Harris’s misstep during her interview on “The View” was a detrimental setback for her campaign, further reinforcing her association to the Biden administration. Senator Heitkamp criticized Biden for his efforts to support Harris in building her presidential profile. “Joe Biden should never have said she’s in charge of the border. You don’t give that job to someone you can’t fire…what people heard is that she was in charge of the border and they said, “Okay, you were in charge of the border, and it didn’t get fixed,” she said 

Senator Heitkamp suggests that a gender disparity is dividing the nation. 

The gap between young men and women is further growing and it is dividing our nation and politics. Senator Heitkamp focused on the low educational attainment trajectory of men. “Women are overwhelmingly doing better and advancing in advanced careers, advanced degrees in college than young men. Young men are struggling in secondary schools, and that’s something we should be talking about. What is it about teaching methods that are leaving young men behind?” she said. 

There is a gravitation to muscular messages and misogynistic territory as a result of this gender gap. “As with any kind of thing like this, the pendulum can swing too far,” she said, “which is what you’re seeing now in statements like ‘your body, my choice’.” Senator Heitkamp notes that the educational crisis of young men in this nation needs to be addressed the same way if those numbers were reversed to young women.  

Senator Heikamp believes that this loss for Democrats was inevitable. 

The loss of not only the Presidency but also the Senate and the House has been a long time coming. It had only been delayed from the post-pandemic with Biden becoming elected, but Senator Heitkamp insists that by looking at polls across the nation it is clear that the people are rejecting the Democratic party. “It has been increasingly difficult for Democrats to get elected for probably the last 15 years,” she said. 
Bernie Sanders stated on the morning after the election that the Democratic Party had abandoned the working class people. Senator Heitkamp had a similar sentiment stating, “I think that it is an opportunity for the Democratic Party to look in the mirror and say, why is it that the party of working people can’t get working people to vote for it?”